Post on 30-Jul-2020
Inside... 5 Bernstein, Blitzstein and Weill
7 Candide as Existential Vaudeville
2 Annus Mirabilis
4 Artful Learning
8 Remembering Friends
10 In the News
12 New Releases
News for Friends of
Leonard Bernstein
Spring/Summer 2019
CO
URTESTY
OF A
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TERPRISES, INC
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SIC D
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As the Leonard Bernstein at 100
celebrations begin to subside,
we’re catching our collective breath,
trying to make sense of all that we’ve
experienced: the whirlwind of per-
formances; the exhibits and docu-
mentaries; the books and articles and
re-issues of recordings. What a marvel
it’s been.
But it’s the people who have
amazed us the most: the performers
who gather Bernstein’s music to their
hearts, then share it with their public;
the audiences—so varied in age, in
nationality, in field of interest; and the
presenters—all those folks who cooked
up the myriad celebrations, from the-
atre companies to universities to dance
companies, from museums to libraries
to orchestras of every stripe—and
beyond.
And perhaps best of all are the
young people. What a rare oppor-
tunity the centennial has been for
introducing Leonard Bernstein to a
new generation of performers and
young audiences. Not surprisingly,
kids really respond to the galvanic
energies of Bernstein music. We saw
it happen to the kids in the Artful
Learning programs nationwide; in
school systems like the one in Darien,
CT that explored Bernstein all year
long; and in the El Sistema-inspired
youth orchestras around the country,
whose young members shared the song
“Somewhere” in a special arrangement
created just for them.
There is something about the com-
bined elements of emotionality, deep
spiritual longing, and the sheer joy of
existence in Bernstein’s music-making,
that makes his public feel authentically
connected to him. All that dynamism
and sensitivity and, yes, love that
Bernstein put into the world has come
pinging back at all of us through these
centennial celebrations—and nothing
could have been more touching.
J.B. ■
by Heather Wallace
Leonard Bernstein’s legendary
Carnegie Hall debut with
the New York Philharmonic
on November 14, 1943, was
just the starting point for several
extraordinary accomplishments that
took place in little more than a year,
causing Bernstein’s double career
as a conductor and composer to
skyrocket.
Toward the end of 1942,
Bernstein was rushing to complete
his Symphony No. 1: Jeremiah for
entry into a competition organized
by the New England Conservatory.
Although the symphony did not
win the competition, Jeremiah
was destined for great success.
Bernstein sent the work to both
his Tanglewood mentor, Serge
Koussevitzky, and his Curtis Institute
conducting teacher, Fritz Reiner, for
feedback. Reiner loved it and imme-
diately invited Bernstein to conduct
it with the Pittsburgh Symphony,
while encouraging him to add a
more uplifting fourth movement.
In a letter to his friend and mentor
Aaron Copland, Bernstein wrote,
“He is most anxious for the fourth
movement; insists it’s all too sad and
defeatist. Same criticism my father
had, which raises Pop in my estima-
tion no end. I really haven’t the time
or energy for a fourth movement. I
1944: Bernstein’s Annus Mirabilis
seem to have had my little say as far
as that piece is concerned.”
Catching wind of Reiner’s enthu-
siasm for the piece, Koussevitsky
invited Bernstein to premiere it in
Boston. But Jeremiah was already
slated to have its premiere in
Pittsburgh. Bernstein conducted his
symphony there with the Pittsburgh
Symphony Orchestra on January
28, 1944 (just two months after the
Carnegie Hall debut), with mezzo-so-
prano Jennie Tourel as the soloist.
The performance was a complete
success. Three weeks later, Bernstein
conducted his piece with the Boston
Symphony, where it triumphed
once again. In March and April, he
conducted it four more times with
the New York Philharmonic. The
New York Music Critics Circle voted
Jeremiah “outstanding new classical
work of the season.”
Guest conducting invitations
began flooding in to Bernstein’s
representative, Arthur Judson [1881-
1975], the founder of Columbia
Artists Management. Bernstein
made several conducting debuts
with orchestras throughout North
America, greatly broadening his rep-
ertoire in the process. On March 7,
1944, 25-year-old Bernstein made his
international debut, conducting Les
Concerts Symphoniques de Montréal
(now the Orchestre symphonique
de Montréal). The performance got
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Bernstein in 1944.
Left: Articles and programs from 1944.
FRED PA
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a rave review in the Montreal Star:
“The strings of this orchestra have
never before produced such quantity
and quality of tone or so much fine-
ness of shading.”
Bernstein received similar praise
later that summer for his conducting
debuts with the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival and
the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the
Hollywood Bowl, as well as other
outdoor concerts in Montreal and
New York. In the fall, he led the New
York Philharmonic in five different
programs; gave a series of radio con-
certs in Detroit; and conducted the
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, his
tenth orchestra in that year.
Throughout this busy time,
another facet of Bernstein’s career
was also gaining momentum. In the
fall of 1943, the young choreogra-
pher Jerome Robbins knocked on the
door of Bernstein’s studio apartment
above Carnegie Hall, to discuss an
idea he had for a one-act ballet about
three sailors on shore leave in New
York City. Instantly, a great partner-
ship was born.
Bernstein found time to compose
the thirty-minute score of Fancy Free
in between his conducting engage-
ments. The Ballet Theatre (later the
American Ballet Theatre) premiered
the work at the Metropolitan Opera
House on April 18, 1944 (just four
months after the Carnegie Hall
debut). Fancy Free was a huge
success, breaking Met box office
records, with performances extend-
ed for an additional two weeks.
Bernstein conducted additional per-
formances in San Francisco and at
the Hollywood Bowl.
Following the success of Fancy
Free, the scenic designer Oliver Smith
persuaded Robbins and Bernstein to
develop their ballet into a Broadway
musical. Smith and his friend Paul
Feigay produced the show, with the
esteemed George Abbott directing.
Robbins was pushing for Arthur
Laurents to write the book (Laurents
later wrote the book of West Side
Story) and for John La Touche to
pen the lyrics (La Touche later wrote
lyrics for Candide). But Bernstein
insisted on bringing in his friends
Betty Comden and Adolph Green.
From June to December of 1944, the
three young authors wrote and com-
posed On the Town, expanding on
Fancy Free’s story of the three sailors.
The new show followed the sailors’
24-hour shore leave in New York City,
tracking their amorous adventures on
the eve of their steaming off to war-
torn Europe, to meet what fates they
could not know.
Following a tumultuous ten-day
tryout in Boston, On the Town tri-
umphantly premiered on Broadway
on December 28, 1944, at the
Adelphi Theatre (barely a year after
the Carnegie Hall debut). As Jack
O’Brien of the Associated Press put
it, “a reviewer gets an opportunity to
heave his hat into the stratosphere,
send up rockets and in general start
the sort of journalistic drooling over
a musical comedy that puts an end to
all adequate usage of superlatives.”
MGM immediately bought the rights
to On the Town for a subsequent
movie.
This abundance of activity—
including Bernstein’s New York
Philharmonic stipend; major city
conducting fees; a recording con-
tract with RCA Victor; publishing
proceeds; income from Fancy Free;
On the Town royalties; and proceeds
from the On the Town movie rights—
jointly led to a tenfold increase in
Bernstein’s income in 1944 and 1945.
Bernstein also managed to find
time for his political and humanitar-
ian causes. Despite his parents’ con-
cerns regarding his outspokenness,
Bernstein proudly told the press,
in reference to Jeremiah, about his
sense of identification with the Jews
in Europe and their terrible plight at
the hands of the Nazis. He spoke at
a pro-Roosevelt rally and appeared
in “An Evening with Paul Robeson...
under the auspices of: The Joint
Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee,
the Council on African Affairs,” as
referred to in Bernstein’s already
copious FBI file.
This feverish flurry of conducting
and composing successes propelled
Leonard Bernstein to the status of a
must-have conductor for orchestras
worldwide, and a must-get composer
for both the concert hall and the
stage. Thus it was in that very com-
pressed period that the foundation
for the rest of Bernstein’s legendary
career was firmly set. ■
Heather Wallace is the Digital Media
and Promotions Manager at The
Leonard Bernstein Office.
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Artful Learning Update
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by Patrick Bolek
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!
Boomtown Media, based in Berlin,
Germany, secured funding from
two European foundations to create a
global awareness message that educa-
tion must improve how students learn
if they are to be productive and con-
fident in a changing world. An Artful
Learning School provides that hope.
Two documentary short films will be
created from a week-long residency
film shoot in Napa, California. One
film will be a case study that follows a
student and family through their day,
intertwined with their learning expe-
riences at Willow Elementary. A sec-
ond film will demonstrate the creative
and innovative approaches embedded
at Willow Elementary through the
Artful Learning model. The premiere
of both documentary shorts, under
the direction of Thomas Grube and
produced by Uwe Dierks, is slated
for late 2019. Glimpses of classroom
Kappel. The grant also provides
funding to continue development,
build awareness, and add additional
schools across the nation.
MAGNET SCHOOLS OF AMERICA CONFERENCE April 10-14, 2019
Federal magnet funding has
energized Artful Learning Schools
in California, Florida, and Michigan
in the past decade—and now, the
Magnet Schools of America have
recognized these schools as “schools
of Excellence and Distinction” - their
highest honors.
Willow Elementary (Napa, CA),
Midway Elementary School of the
Arts (Sanford, FL), and Dwight Rich
School of the Arts (Lansing, MI)
continue to reimagine their schools
by empowering students, educators,
teaching artists, and communities.
Artful Learning will be spon-
soring Booth 9 at the conference in
Baltimore, Maryland, promoting the
concept of Empowerment Through
Transformation. The conference
draws thousands of administrators,
educators, and advocates of the mag-
net platform and will be an excellent
opportunity to showcase and further
expand the model. ■
Patrick Bolek serves as the Director,
Advancement Consultant and Lead
Master Trainer for Artful Learning.
learning; Original Creation demon-
strations; and interviews with stu-
dents, educators, and artists are just
some of the upcoming highlights.
BUILDING THE ARTFUL LEARNING TEAM AND MORE...
Through a combination of the
Artful Learning Board of Directors’
action and the awarding of a gen-
erous grant, the executive team
has expanded to include Executive
Assistant Claire McCall and
Development Consultant Jerold
CO
URTESY
PATRIC
K BO
LEK
Kids Celebrate Bernstein
Director Thomas Grube oversees the capture of a dynamic Artful Learning classroom.
Works by Agnes Zionic, Grade 2 and Kimball Atha, Grade 3, Holmes School.
The Darien, CT school system
has spent the year focusing on
Leonard Bernstein. Elementary
school students participated in a post-
er project. The results were festive!
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by Rebecca Schmid
Leonard Bernstein’s own brand of
serious music theater was shaped
by two figures: The American com-
poser Marc Blitzstein, who played
a key role in the reception of Kurt
Weill in the U.S., and Weill himself.
Bernstein’s career had become inter-
twined with that of Blitzstein in his
student years. In 1939, while studying
at Harvard, he mounted a production
of Blitzstein’s The Cradle will Rock
which Blitzstein later wrote “packed a
thrilling wallop for me.” Bernstein in
turn saw the composer, who was 13
years his senior, as a “giant who had
written those notes which seduced
my soul.”
The Cradle will Rock marked a
new phase in Blitzstein’s career in
which he pursued the ideal of social-
ly relevant music theatre combining
elements of both European modern-
ism and American vernacular. At the
encouragement of Bertolt Brecht, the
“play in music” explored the strug-
gle between union workers and the
ruthless Mr. Mister in the fictional
town of Steeltown, U.S.A. Allusions
to Weill’s Die Dreigroschenoper
are only thinly veiled, particularly
through the numbers of the prosti-
tute, Moll, as the show takes on the
hypocrisy of capitalist society.
Weill’s work was also an
eye-opener for Bernstein. He had
encountered a recording with Lotte
Lenya singing the role of Jenny in
1937 which he later recalled made
him “instantly” fall in love. But he
credited Blitzstein in large part
for his intimacy with the music.
“Through Marc I came to feel that
I knew Kurt Weill,” he wrote. “His
drives, his courage, his foibles and
his great humanity.”
If Blitzstein’s own contact with
Weill had been limited, his English
adaptation of Die Dreigroschenoper,
The Threepenny Opera, started
an American renaissance for the
German émigré’s pre-exile works
(it was also the most lucrative
undertaking of Blitzstein’s career).
Bernstein conducted the premiere at
Brandeis University in 1952 during
the same festival that unveiled his
opera Trouble in Tahiti. Dedicated
to Blitzstein, the score of that opera
was finished in the cabin outside
Saratoga, New York, where the elder
composer had been working on his
musical drama, Reuben Reuben.
As Bernstein rose to internation-
al fame, he remained a champion
of Blitzstein’s work. He premiered
Blitzstein’s Airborne Symphony with
the New York City Symphony and,
in 1955, tried to convince the artistic
administration of La Scala to mount
the opera Regina. Bernstein was so
passionate about the drama’s historic
importance that he had published a
preview piece in the New York Times
upon its 1949 premiere, writing of an
operatic tradition that is “wholly an
outgrowth of our culture.”
It was against this backdrop that
he created Trouble in Tahiti which,
like Regina, offers an unflinching-
ly honest portrayal of American
domestic life in an idiom that veers
freely between the popular and the
melodramatic. The “opera in seven
scenes” was in some ways a problem
child. Blitzstein admitted to friends
while “lively musically,” Trouble
in Tahiti suffered from a “dreary”
story and “somewhat inept lyrics.”
Bernstein himself called the work
“half-baked” after the premiere (he
would write the sequel A Quiet Place
three decades later, which in the
1984 version incorporates the first
opera as a flashback). But Bernstein’s
score is a formal experiment that
created an important stepping stone
toward Candide and West Side Story.
Even more so than by Blitzstein,
that path was paved by the innova-
tions of Weill, who had probed the
possibilities of a mixed genre defying
the boundaries between opera and
musical theatre. The development
began in his collaborations with
Brecht and continued in the U.S.
The “musical play” Lady in the Dark
weaves together dream sequences
with the everyday life of a magazine
editor as she undergoes psychoanal-
ysis. The “American opera” Street
Scene explores stories of thwarted
romance at a New York apartment
house, quoting Wagner and Puccini
while integrating a range of popular
idioms.
Weill’s ambitions may have been
too lofty, for Street Scene has not
maintained a foot in commercial
theatres but rather opera houses.
West Side Story, on the other hand,
entered the mainstream (foremost
through the 1961 film version) as it
told of warring Puerto Rican and
Caucasian-American factions on
(continued on page 13)
Bernstein, Blitzstein and Weill
Marc Blitzstein and Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood.
LIBRARY
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by Craig Urquhart
Ravinia’s multi-season celebration
of Leonard Bernstein, which
kicked off during his centennial
last summer, enters its second year
curated by conductor Marin Alsop.
The celebration of Bernstein as artist,
activist, and educator will continue
through his music as well as that
of composers he championed. In
addition to concerts in all three of
Ravinia’s concert venues, an exciting
fourth venue, the newly construct-
ed Ravinia Music Box Experience
Center, will open this summer fea-
turing a futuristic installation about
Bernstein.
The festivities will begin on July
20 with an encore performance of
MASS, which the Chicago Tribune
declared one of the best concerts
in 2018. As with last year, this per-
formance will feature the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra (CSO), Chicago
Children’s Chorus, and the Highland
Park High School Marching Band,
with Paulo Szot returning in the role
of Celebrant, and Marin Alsop con-
ducting.
Next up will be two performanc-
es of Bernstein’s opera, Trouble in
Tahiti, starring Patricia Racette and
Paulo Szot, with the CSO conducted
by Alsop.
The Knights, conducted by Erik
Jacobsen, will reprise their acclaimed
Boston production of Candide, with
choreography by John Heginbotham.
Songfest, Bernstein’s settings
of texts by a diverse grouping of
American poets, will feature singers
from Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute
and the Caroga Arts Ensemble,
under the baton of Alexander Platt.
Two iconic films, West Side
Story and On The Waterfront, will
be screened with live orchestra per-
forming Bernstein’s music. David
Newman will conduct.
The Bobby Sanabria Mutiverse
Big Band will perform selections
from their 2019 Grammy-nominated
album West Side Story Reimagined.
Composers that Bernstein cham-
pioned will also be represented.
Conductor Lional Bringuier and pia-
nist Jean-Yves Thibaudet will join the
CSO in a performance of Gershwin’s
Concerto in F in a program that
also includes two Bernstein favor-
ites, Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite
and Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite.
Bernstein’s admiration for the music
of Gustav Mahler will be celebrated
with a performance of Mahler’s
Symphony No. 8: Symphony of a
Thousand, Alsop and the CSO and
chorus performing. The soloists
will be sopranos Angela Mease,
Leah Crocetto and Joélle Harvey;
mezzo sopranos Michelle DeYoung
and Kelley O’Connor; tenor Joseph
Kaiser; baritone Paulo Szot; and bass
Ryan Speedo Green.
Jamie Bernstein will join Marin
Alsop and the CSO for Lenny: A
Musical Portrait. This evening of
symphonic works, songs, and stories
will evoke the spirit of Bernstein as
composer, activist, and family man.
Guest artists include pianist André
Watts, baritone Paulo Szot, and
mezzo soprano Michelle DeYoung.
Ravinia President and CEO Welz
Kauffman said, “There aren’t enough
hyphens to string together all of
Bernstein’s titles and accomplish-
ments, and Ravinia's multi-season
celebration is hoping to present a
well-rounded remembrance of both
the common man and the superstar
artist who did so much to shape our
musical tastes and further our under-
standing.”
For more information: https://
www.ravinia.org
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The Celebration Continues
Pacific Music Festival 30th SeasonThis summer the Pacific Music
Festival (PMF), an international
educational music festival founded
in Sapporo by Leonard Bernstein, is
celebrating its 30th season. Bernstein
founded PMF in his last months, as
part of his commitment to educat-
ing young musicians and fostering
international mutual understanding
through music. Bernstein said, “The
Pacific Music Festival is one very large
aspect of this commitment, which I
hereby make for the rest of my life.”
The heart of PMF is the
Orchestra Academy, made up of
young musicians from all parts of the
globe, who are chosen through audi-
tions. They receive instruction from a
faculty of musicians from the Vienna
Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic,
and leading orchestras of the United
States.
PMF 2019 will feature Christoph
Eschenbach, who took on the role
of PMF Artistic Director the year
after Bernstein’s passing, and has
gone on to serve in the role nine
times. Maestro Eschenbach will lead
Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 in celebra-
tion of the 30th anniversary.
The annual Leonard Bernstein
Memorial Concert will be held
this year on July 13, with the PMF
Orchestra led by Marin Alsop, who
attended the first season of PMF as
a protégée of Bernstein. The festival
will culminate with Shostakovich’s
Symphony No. 4 led by current PMF
Artistic Director Valery Gergiev.
The Festival runs from July 6 until
August 2. ■
For more information: https://
www.pmf.or.jp/en/
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“Nothing More Than This?”: Candide as Existential Vaudeville at Komische Oper Berlin
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by David Savran
Imagine a world that persistently
rewards the rich and powerful while
immiserating the masses. Imagine
a paternalist cartel that scapegoats
minorities and refugees, while treat-
ing women like chattel to be bought,
coddled, and dumped. Voltaire did
so in his 1759 novella Candide by
observing—and ruthlessly satiriz-
ing—the world around him. Leonard
Bernstein and his many collaborators
did so two centuries later in their
controversial musical/operetta. Sixty
years on, Director Barrie Kosky, at
Komische Oper in Berlin, has fol-
lowed suit and succeeded rapturously
in resurrecting Candide by underscor-
ing both its historicity and its disturb-
ing contemporaneity.
The theatrical dynamism of
Bernstein’s Candide lies in the
violent contradiction between the
ravishing beauty and wit of its score
and the relentless succession of
horrors that comprises its plot. This
contradiction is not a flaw; rather
it is the crux of the piece’s unique
brilliance and power. Because a
realistic production is unthinkable,
most directors emphasize the farci-
cal, fantastical nature of Candide’s
brutalities and the two-dimensional-
ity of its protagonists. Barrie Kosky
does as well, but by radicalizing the
clash between the sublime and the
ridiculous, he turns it into what he
calls an “existential vaudeville” that
takes Candide’s sparkling comedy
seriously by mining it for tragedy.
For all its silliness, Kosky’s Candide
disproves Leibnizian optimism by
depicting the realest of all possi-
ble worlds as a merry-go-round of
exploitation, greed, and slaughter. In
underscoring this message, Kosky’s
vaudeville (based on John Caird’s
1999 version for the Royal National
Theatre) mines the intriguing par-
allels between Bernstein’s operetta
and two plays that took the world
by storm during the decade of
Candide’s launch, Samuel Beckett’s
Waiting for Godot and Endgame.
Like Beckett’s plays, Kosky’s new
production honors Candide’s
absurdist logic as the inexorable law
of a ruthlessly arbitrary and unjust
world. In recognizing the piece’s
kinship with its absurdist contempo-
raries, this production exposes the
philosophical fatalism that underlay
the post-World War II boom years of
Bernstein’s heyday and illuminates
the darkest corners of our own world.
Candide’s contradictions are
nowhere more apparent than in the
“Auto-da-fé.” Kosky’s is a contem-
porary media event, complete with
cameras and boom microphones,
which climaxes in the hanging of
Pangloss and flogging of Candide.
The throngs of merrymakers are
joined by a chorus line of leggy,
can-canning show “girls” (both
women and men) in Vegas-style
bright blue and white one-pieces,
with oversized feather headdresses
and trains. The trials of Pangloss
and Candide are preceded by two
others, the first of a pair of cartoon-
ish Jews and the second of a refugee
couple carrying plastic tote bags (the
woman wearing a head scarf). Both
groups are nonchalantly condemned
and machine-gunned, then hastily
dragged off-stage by the show “girls.”
Kosky’s pair of unmistakably
contemporary refugees is but one
of many examples of the renewed
relevance his Candide contrives. The
first act closes with Candide and
company (along with the chorus)
en route to the New World in three
large rubber dinghies that clearly
evoke the leaky, makeshift barks that
refugees are forced to take while flee-
ing from North Africa to Europe. In
Surinam, Candide’s servant Martin,
“the most wretched, pessimistic per-
son” Candide could find, is re-gen-
dered as a woman-played-by-a-man
street-sweeper in the tradition of the
scene-stealing, comic travesty roles
of Monteverdi and Cavalli. Martin’s
carnivalesque drag (as working-class
executor of distinctly feminized
labor) gives his misanthropy a fasci-
natingly grotesque twist.
For all Candide’s trials and trib-
ulations, it is questionable whether
Voltaire’s protagonist ends his jour-
ney an enlightened man. Bernstein’s
hero, however, especially in later
editions of Candide, is given a
moment of illumination, an elegiac
aria “Nothing More Than This”
that follows his ridiculously overdue
acknowledgment of Cunegonde’s
venality. In Kosky’s production,
the performance of this aria has
resonances that reach far beyond
Cunegonde’s betrayal, becoming
a bitter rejection of Pangloss’s irre-
sponsible optimism and a tragic
acknowledgment of the precarity
and evanescence of earthly things.
(continued on page 13)
MO
NIK
A RITTERSH
AU
S
Scene from Candide at Komische Oper, Berlin.
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Remembering Sono Osato (1919-2018)
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by Carol J. Oja
Sono Osato, the original “Ivy
Smith” in On the Town of 1944,
passed away in December at age 99.
A brilliant dancer in America’s golden
age of ballet, Osato was prominent
within a generation of ballerinas,
including Agnes De Mille, who
brought ballet to Broadway musicals.
Osato exhibited personal and polit-
ical courage, challenging the racial
restrictions that defined performance
in the mid-twentieth century.
Born in 1919, Osato was
Nikkei—that is, a child of the
Japanese diaspora—whose father
Shoji Osato immigrated from Japan.
Her mother, Frances Fitzpatrick,
was an American of Irish-French-
Canadian descent. Because of
race-based immigration laws at the
time, Frances lost her American
citizenship when she married a
Japanese national. Sono was born
in Nebraska and moved with her
family to Chicago, where in 1934—at
age 14—she auditioned successfully
for the Ballets Russes de Monte
Carlo. Thus as a teenager, Sono was
suddenly working in a renowned
transnational troupe, made up large-
ly of Russian exiles. The New York
newspaper PM later asserted her to
be the company’s “youngest member
and its first American.”
One of Sono’s signature roles
with the Ballets Russes de Monte
Carlo was “The Siren” in George
Balanchine’s The Prodigal Son,
which premiered in 1938. At the
start of World War II, the troupe
relocated to New York City, and
Sono moved to Ballet Theatre, which
was then a relatively new American
company. She became a celebrity,
attracting the attention of major
photographers including George
Platt Lynes. Sono’s initial Broadway
role was in Kurt Weill’s One Touch
of Venus, which opened in 1943.
For it, she won the first Donaldson
Award (a predecessor of the Tony
Awards) for Best Female Dancer.
While Sono danced in New York
City, her father Shoji was targeted by
the anti-Japanese hysteria of World
War II. The day after Pearl Harbor,
he was arrested and detained in
Chicago by the F.B.I., despite the
fact that his government records,
obtained under the Freedom of
Information Act, show no sign of
subversive activity. Rather he was
presumed guilty because of profes-
sional associations with the Japanese
tourist bureau, having drawn on his
national heritage to forge business
alliances across borders.
Xenophobia also impacted
Sono’s career. In the spring of 1942,
when Ballet Theatre toured Mexico,
she could not obtain a passport
because of her Japanese heritage.
The next year, under Executive
Order 9066 which aimed to remove
all people of Japanese ancestry from
the West Coast, she was prohibited
from performing with the troupe in
California.
Then miraculously—coura-
geously—Sono was hired for the
starring role in On the Town. There
she played a character crowned as
“Miss Turnstiles,” a beauty queen
of the subway, and she did so in an
era when no Asian American stars
appeared on Broadway or had the
slightest chance of winning real
beauty pageants. Furthermore,
On the Town’s interracial casting
JEROM
E ROBBIN
S DA
NC
E DIV
ISION
, THE N
EW Y
ORK
PUBLIC
LIBRARY
FOR TH
E PERFORM
ING
ARTS,
flirted with what was then called
miscegenation. As a central plot-line
of the show, a sailor named Gabey—
played by John Battles, an actor
of Caucasian heritage—pursued
Sono’s Ivy. A promotional photo
shows Osato standing seductively
over Battles, giving a sense of how
brazenly their on-stage romance was
portrayed.
Because of Shoji’s detention,
he could not attend his daughter’s
opening night on Broadway. Yet
Sono continued to dance. She
also became active politically—for
example, demonstrating on behalf
of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade,
which was defying Franco’s dicta-
torship in Spain, and also against
Jim Crow segregation in the theaters
of Washington, D.C. The Pacific
Citizen, published by the Japanese
American Citizens League, followed
her activities, writing in 1946 that
Sono “is now as well known for her
social conscience as she is for her
dancing and acting.” After On The
Town, she appeared in the Broadway
show Ballet Ballads (1948) and the
Hollywood film The Kissing Bandit
(1949).
In the early 1950s, Sono faced
a new set of hurdles because of the
Communist-hysteria blacklist. In her
remarkable autobiography Distant
Dances (1980), she recounted the
damage that resulted, including the
loss of a hoped-for career in televi-
sion. She returned to the stage in
1955, this time in a revue titled Once
Over Lightly with Zero Mostel and
Jack Gilford, with comedy sketches
by the young Mel Brooks. The show
was not successful, however, and
Sono essentially retired from perfor-
mance.
Sono Osato married Victor
Elmaleh (a real estate developer and
entrepreneur) in 1943, and she is
survived by their two sons, Niko and
Antonio. ■
Carol J. Oja is the author of
Bernstein Meets Broadway:
Collaborative Art in a Time of War
(Oxford University Press), which
includes a chapter about Osato.
Sono Osato posing in her ”cooch girl“ costume for On the Town, together with John Battles.
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by John Mauceri
Sitting down with André Previn for
a chat was an exercise in a kaleido-
scopic history of 20th century music.
For three years he welcomed me into
his apartment where he sat at his desk,
surrounded by stacks of papers, books,
and scores, accompanied by the fre-
quent interjections of his cat.
Previn had been severely chal-
lenged by old age, and when asked
“How are you?” would usually
answer, “It doesn’t matter.” His death
at the age of 89 was not particularly
surprising, but it still was a shock
to realize that he surely was the last
musical titan to emerge out of World
War II and the racial policies of the
Nazis. Were it not for the vagaries of
his native country, the Berlin-born
Previn might have become Germany’s
wunderkind instead of America’s.
Since he was eleven years younger
than Leonard Bernstein, Lenny’s life
and career cast a mighty shadow onto
André’s. When Previn began con-
ducting lessons with Pierre Monteux,
the old maestro asked his pupil
if he had been watching Leonard
Bernstein. When Previn answered in
the affirmative, Monteux said, “I have
never known an orchestra to play
louder because I jumped in the air.”
Lesson taken. The press liked to see
André as the “next Bernstein,” and
has hardly stopped looking for the
next Bernstein even today. But just as
there will never be another Leonard
Bernstein, their will never be another
André Previn.
What they had in common
remains pretty obvious: early signs of
genius, catholicity of taste, pianistic
virtuosity, media attention, composi-
tions ranging from one grand opera
to chamber works and musicals, and
a profound international success
with the standard European classical
repertory. They occasionally met—
most famously for a performance of
Beethoven’s Triple Concerto at Wolf
Trap’s celebration of Bernstein’s 60th
birthday, with Yehudi Menuhin and
Mstislav Rostropovich as co-soloists.
But André was his own man and
Remembering André Previn (1929-2019)Remembering Sono Osato (1919-2018)
Violinist Yehudi Menuhin, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, Leonard Bernstein, and pianist André Previn.
Prelud
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9
was in fact quite unlike Bernstein,
making it important to celebrate his
genius as uniquely his own. Previn,
for example, became Previn in
Hollywood, working during a time
when the first World War II refu-
gee composers—Rozsa, Waxman,
Tiomkin and Korngold—were still
active, and the next generation, the
American born and trained Jerry
Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, Alex
North, and Bernard Herrmann were
emerging; Previn’s abilities as a com-
poser, arranger, and conductor were
first noticed and celebrated there;
his work on My Fair Lady, Gigi, and
Porgy and Bess were the culmination
of an astounding facility that gar-
nered him four Academy Awards. His
dry sense of humor was clearly on dis-
play when he recently spoke to me of
his first picture, The Sun Comes Up,
which starred Jeanette MacDonald
and Lassie. (“There was a lot of bark-
ing but not much dialogue in a Lassie
movie. I got to write a lot of music.”)
André was eighteen years old and
was smart enough to take that assign-
ment seriously, leading to what could
have been a lifetime job.
André surprised everyone when
he left Hollywood, slamming the
door by writing a book called No
Minor Chords that many saw as per-
petuating the idea that Hollywood
is run by idiots and charlatans. But
André wanted other things, things
to fill his soul, and he did just that
by composing his own music and
becoming a major conductor and
teacher, much as Lenny did. More of
a fixture on British television, Previn
was a household name in the UK.
And he was a brilliant jazz musi-
cian. He may have looked at jazz
as a hobby, but his achievements in
the world of jazz made him famous
to a previously untapped audience
by combining jazz with Broadway
for the first time. When I asked him
about his 1959 album, André Previn
and His Pals—West Side Story, he said
that Columbia Records agreed to
record it because Bernstein had heard
Previn perform his take on the score
and encouraged the company to
bring André and his jazz colleagues
into the studio.
The first time André and I met,
our conversations included: how to
beat the opening bars of Brahms’s
Third Symphony; Boulez’s opinion of
Shostakovich (“He is not a composer.”
“Pierre, you’re joking.” He was not.);
how he recorded My Fair Lady with
Rex Harrison’s insisting on perform-
ing the musical numbers live to the
camera; our shared history with his
MGM piano colleague Mel Powell
(my composition teacher and the man
who played Tom & Jerry cartoon
sound tracks with André); his love
for his composition teacher Mario
Castelnuovo Tedesco; his next book;
and music he was writing for Renée
Fleming. He was kind and soft-spo-
ken, though he could rise to episodes
of titanic anger when he sensed injus-
tice or incompetence. It should come
as no surprise that he held very strong
opinions.
During those three years that
I visited André Previn, I somehow
expected that he would last forever,
answering questions that spanned
eighty years of making music. Now it
is up to us—those who were privileged
to know him—to retell his stories. ■
Maestro John Mauceri conducted
Sony Classical's recently released
world premiere recording of Danny
Elfman's Violin Concerto. His second
book for Alfred A. Knopf, For the
Love of Music—A Conductor’s Guide
to the Art of Listening, is scheduled
for publication in September..
GU
Y D
ELORT
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Grammy Hall of Fame
Prelud
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10
Leonard Bernstein 100
The Grammy Hall of Fame recently
announced 25 new recordings
to be inducted this year, including
Leonard Bernstein conducting
the premiere recording of his
As part of the celebrations of
Leonard Bernstein’s Centennial,
photographer Steve J. Sherman,
together with Jamie Bernstein,
assembled 100 iconic photos of
the Maestro in a handsome and
informative book published by pow-
erHouse Cultural Entertainment,
Incorporated.
The reviews have been outstand-
ing.
“Leonard Bernstein 100 by Steve
J. Sherman with Jamie Bernstein,
is a love affair between Leonard
Bernstein and the camera, with
invaluable information about the
maestro’s life and career... This book
opens the door to the maestro as
nothing else can... As we turn the
last page, we are left with a sense of
knowing this man, and being a bet-
ter person for it. This is a book that
is read once, and then once again,
and again – each time gaining new
insight into a true maestro.”
– Judith Reveal, New York Journal of
Books, January 2019
“There is a range of emotions
that informs the images... The book
features many unpublished photos
of Mr. Bernstein by some of the most
famous photographers in the world,
from Irving Penn to W. Eugene
Smith, Richard Avedon, and Henri
Cartier-Bresson. After all, master
does recognize master.”
– Rena Silverman, The New York
Times, LENS December 11, 2018
“This handsome tome is a photo-
graphic tribute to Leonard Bernstein
in his centenary year... The photo-
graphs themselves are beautifully
reproduced, one to a page so that
you are able to see them in a fairly
large size that brings out the quali-
ty... A splendid gift for the Bernstein
aficionado.”
– Mike Langhorne, Classical Source,
January 2019
“An elegant, captivating collec-
tion of significant photographs to
celebrate the iconic 20th Century
composer/conductor’s Centennial
in 2018... This rich trove gives gen-
erations to come an unforgettable,
enlightening glimpse into the life of
an artist who changed the face of
culture in the 20th century—a life
documented by many of the most
important photographic artists of
that era.”
– The Boston Symphony Orchestra –
website shop, December 2018 ■
theatre piece, MASS. MASS now
joins Bernstein’s other inductee
recordings: the Complete Mahler
Symphonies with The New York
Philharmonic (NYP)/London
Symphony Orchestra; his record-
ing of Shostakovich Symphony
No. 5 (NYP); the Barber Violin
Concerto (NYP with Isaac Stern);
Ives: Symphony No. 2 (NYP); and
Copland: Appalachian Spring (NYP).
Bernstein’s daughter, Jamie
Bernstein, remarked, “My siblings
and I are thrilled that our father’s
piece MASS is getting its due from
the Grammy Hall of Fame. Of all his
compositions, MASS is the most per-
sonal—the one into which he put the
most of himself. So in honoring the
piece, the Recording Academy hon-
ors Leonard Bernstein himself—in
all his multifacetedness, all his melo-
diousness, and all of his enormous
heart.” ■
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West Side Story Down Under
Theatrical Reviews
WONDERFUL TOWN: Vienna
Wonderful Town, in an
acclaimed Volksoper Wien
co-production with the Dresden
Stattsoperetta, has been delighting
Vienna audiences.
The title roles of Ruth and Eileen
Sherwood were played by Sarah
Schütz and Olivia Delauré. Drew
Sarich sang the role of Robert Baker.
The production was directed by
Matthias David and choreographed
by Melissa King. James Holmes con-
ducted.
“a grand finish of the Bernstein
Year” – Magazine: Vormagazin
“Wonderful Town at the Volksoper
is an all around successfully good
mood evening. No wonder the
viewers couldn‘t stay in their seats at
the end.” – Mottingers Meinung
TROUBLE IN TAHITI, A QUIET PLACE; Aachen, Germany
The Aachen State Theater recently
presented Bernstein’s two operas,
Trouble in Tahiti and A Quiet Place.
The Director Nina Russi chose the
chamber orchestration of Trouble
in Tahiti and the 2013 adaption of A
Quiet Place, both adapted by Garth
This year West Side Story is taking
Australia by storm.
Most recently the Handa Opera
on Sydney Harbor presented a
new production of West Side Story
directed by Francesca Zambello with
choreography by Julio Monge. Native
Aussies Alexander Lewis and Julie
Lea Goodwin performed Tony and
Maria.
“ ...this West Side Story is a solid
success. In fact, in many important
ways it might be the most successful
spectacle floated yet.”
– Daily Review, Jason Whittaker
In addition, Opera Australia and
GWB Entertainment will present
the BB Group production of the
original production of West Side
Story. This production is directed
by Joey McKneely, who also recre-
ates the timeless original Jerome
Robbins choreography. The musical
supervisor is conductor Donald
Chan. The young Australian cast will
feature Todd Jacobsson as Tony and
Sophie Salversan as Maria. In addi-
tion to performances in Australia,
this production will also be seen in
Germany. ■
PERFORMANCE DATES
April 6 -28 Melbourne, Australia: Melbourne
Arts Center
June 25 – July 3 Cologne Germany: Musical Dome
July 6 – 14 Berlin, Germany: Staatsoper Unter
den Linden
July 17 – August 8 Dresden, Germany: Semperoper
August 16 – October 6 Sydney, Australia: Sydney
Opera House
October 10 – October 27 Canberra, Australia:
Canberra Theatre Centre
November 28 – December 15 Adelaide, Australia:
Adelaide Festival Centre
Edwin Sunderland, Music Editor
of The Leonard Bernstein Office.
They were presented on the same
evening. Trouble in Tahiti had Fanny
Lustaud as Dinah and Ronan Collett
as Sam. For A Quiet Place the four
main characters were Wieland Satter
as Old Sam; Katharina Hagopian
as Dede (daughter); Fabio Lesuisse
was Junior (Son); and Patrick Cook
as Francois (Dede’s friend.) The
Symphony Orchestra of Aachen was
led by Christopher Ward.
“What an evening!”
– Die Deutsche Bühne
“A visitation of this production is
highly recommended”
– Der Opernfreund
“ ... a moving scenic execution of
Bernsteins bitter society satire”
– Online Music Magazine
ON THE TOWN: Leipzig
Musikalische Komödie/Oper
Leipzig recently presented
On The Town. The production, in
German, was directed by Cusch
Jung, with musical direction by
Christoph-Joannnes Eichhorn.
The cast featured Jeffrey Krueger
as Gabey; Benjamin Sommerfeld
as Ozzie; and Andreas Rainer as
Chip. Ivy Smith was performed by
Patrcia Klages; Hildy Esterhazy by
Zodwa Selele; Claire De Loone by
Nora Lentner. Melissa Jung was
Lucy Schmeeler and Sabine Töpfer
Madame Dilly. The role of Pitkin
W. Bridgework was performed by
Michael Raschle.
The sold-out performances
received highly complimentary press:
“three truly entertaining thrilling
hours” – Die Deutsche Bühne
“voluptuous, sensual, vivid and
magnificent” – Kultur Regional „
“Just when the piece is over, you
immediately wish it to start all over
again” – kultur-extra.de ■
NEED
CRED
IT
Scene from On the Town in Leipzig.
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12
New Releases
Leonard Bernstein at 100: Jeremiah Soloists
Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1,
Jeremiah, was particularly well
represented during the Centennial
season. Here are the many mezzo
sopranos who sang the searing final
movement of the symphony. ■
Top to Bottom, Left to Right:
Row 1: Annie Rosen; Clara Osowski; Claude Eichenberger; Elisabeth Kulman; Elizabeth DeShong; Guadalupe Barrientos; Jenny Carlstedt; Huiling Zhu; Jamie Barton; Jennifer Johnson Cano
Row 2: Hadar Halevy; Jessica Gillingwater; J'Nai Bridges; Kate Symonds-Joy; Kelley O'Connor;
Laura Beckel Thoreson; Liane Keegan; Marie-Nicole Lemieux; Rinat Shaham
Row 3: Sasha Cooke; Shira Karmon; Sophi Koch; Stephanie Foley Davis; Susan Platts; Tamara Mumford; Tatia Jibladze; Vera Savage; Zlata Khershberg; Zoie Reams
C
Major Entertainment, in conjunc-
tion with Unitel, are presenting
a new release of Leonard Bernstein’s
Young People’s Concerts with The
New York Philharmonic. Previously
only available in the United States, the
groundbreaking series has been digi-
tally remastered on DVD and Blu-ray
for worldwide distribution.
The 52 programs will be released
in three volumes. Volumes 1 and 2
are currently available, with Volume 3
coming soon.
C Major Entertainment has also
released numerous DVDs of other
Bernstein performances.
For more information: https://
www.cmajor-entertainment.com
(continued on page 14)
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Prelude, Fugue & Riffs will be sent upon request.
Please send all correspondence to:
Craig Urquhart
Prelude, Fugue & Riffs
121 West 27th Street
Suite 1104
New York, NY 10001
Fax: (212) 315-0643
e-mail: curquhart@leonard bernstein.com
We appreciate notice of any performances
or events featuring the music of Leonard Bernstein
or honoring his creative life and
we shall do our best to include such infor-
mation in forthcoming calendars.
Prelude, Fugue & Riffs® is a publication
of The Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc.
©2019 by The Leonard
Bernstein Office, Inc.
Managing Editor: Craig Urquhart
Editor: Jamie Bernstein
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Visit our website:
www.leonardbernstein.com
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www.facebook.com
Prelud
e, Fug
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13
Selected Performances
Dear Readers,
Leonard Bernstein at 100 is well into its sec-
ond spectacular year, and the tally on the
database has soared past 5,000! As there are still
quite a number of performances upcoming, we
continue to experience our wonderful problem
of lacking the space to list them all in this news-
letter. And so, for a complete listing of upcom-
ing performances, we request once again that
you visit our website:
https://leonardbernstein.com/at100
Bernstein, Blitzstein and Weill, continued
Candide, continued(continued from page 7)
Like Bernstein, Kosky does not
end Candide in disgust or resigna-
tion. Rather, his staging of the social
collective in the final number square-
ly addresses the contemporary world
of which we are citizens. This world,
moreover, is represented literally in
Kosky’s production by the repeated
appearance of characters carrying
small globes. When Voltaire is
revealed at the top of the show, wear-
ing a gargantuan wig, he is carrying
a globe. During the opening scene
in the Westphalian schoolhouse, a
large colored map of the world hangs
on the back wall bearing the legend:
world climate zones. Just before the
final number, a huge inflated globe
appears upstage and slowly rolls
toward the audience, only to be inter-
cepted by Candide and Cunegonde
and then hoisted aloft and gently
spun by the chorus. The presence
of this miniature planet gives a new
meaning and urgency to one of
the most resplendent finales in all
musical theatre. “This is our world,”
it seems to say, “now threatened by
man-made apocalypse. Guard it well,
protect it, make our garden grow.” ■
David Savran is the Vera Mowry
Roberts Chair in American Theatre;
Distinguished Professor of Theatre and
Performance; and at The Graduate
Center, City University of New York.
©David Savron used by permission
(continued from page 5)
the streets of New York. There are
numbers that lean toward opera (the
“Tonight” Quintet), more catchy
songs (“I Feel Pretty”) and those
that reside somewhere in between
(“Maria”).
Candide, meanwhile, which
premiered a year before West Side
Story, in 1956, pays homage to the
likes of Cunegonde and Bellini while
maintaining a distinctly American
carefree spirit, satirizing the hunt for
communists during the McCarthy
era while reveling in the glamour of
Old World culture. Looking back
through the lens of today’s world,
it is easy to become nostalgic for a
time when it was so self-explanato-
ry for artists to cross the Atlantic,
philosophically and otherwise.
If Bernstein died before realizing
his vision of an opera about the
Holocaust, Candide is a biting satire
that shows the possibility of a better
world in which people are not judged
by their social status, religious back-
ground or political affiliations.
Despite a life-long struggle to
reconcile his inner tension between
the pensive composer and the
jet-setting conductor, he managed to
produce stage works that combine
his gifts as a communicator and
musical craftsman. That did not stop
Stephen Sondheim from rewriting
“The Saga of Jenny” from Lady in the
Dark as “The Saga of Lenny” upon
Bernstein’s 70th birthday, teasing
him about the inability to make up
his mind: “Poor Lenny/Ten gifts too
many/the curse of being versatile/
To show how bad the curse is/We’ll
need a lot of verses/and take a little
Weill.” As the lyrics tacitly acknowl-
edge, Bernstein drew important
impulses from the émigré composer
as he created works that both edu-
cate and entertain. The comparison
of scores by Weill, Blitzstein and
Bernstein continues to reveal how a
specific tradition was absorbed and
transformed into musical hybrids
that remain beloved on stages around
the world. ■
Rebecca Schmid is completing
her dissertation about the compo-
sitional reception of Weill in the
music theatre works of Blitzstein
and Bernstein at the Humboldt-
Universität zu Berlin. She contributes
regularly to the Financial Times and
International New York Times and
has moderated and written program
notes for such organizations as the
Karajan Music Tech Conference,
Metropolitan Opera and Salzburg
Festival.
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121 West 27th StreetSuite 1104 New York, NY 10001
PRESORTED
STANDARD
U.S. POSTAGE PAID
NEWARK, NJ
PERMIT NO. 625
Printed on recycled paper
New Releases, continued(continued from page 12)
BelAir Classiques has recently
released the Opéra de Toulon’s 2018
production of Wonderful Town on
DVD and Blu-ray. This production
was directed by Olivier Bénézech with
musical direction by Larry Blank.
Westdeutscher Rundfunk has
released a 3 CD collection: Leonard
Bernstein Piano and Chamber
Music. This collection features pianist
Benyamin Nuss performing the com-
plete solo piano works of Bernstein,
and features the pianist/conductor
Wayne Marshall performing the cham-
ber music of Bernstein with soloists
Maria Kliegel, cello; Marice Steger,
recorder; and others. ■
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